And so it goes...

My boyfriend recently told me that I'm probably "the only person who gets paid pretty much every moment you're conscious." He said it like it was a positive thing, an amusing thing. I took it as a pathetic thing, a sign of my OCD-must-know-everything personality taken two steps too far.

I didn't get upset at the comment. The observation is probably 75% percent true. I do spend a large portion of my waking hours either working or at least in a location that pays me to sit in front of a computer on standby until something needs to be seen to. Every morning I leave at 7:15am and two or three nights a week, I return home at 7:15pm or later. I work on Saturdays, Sundays and when I can't sleep. When I'm not working, I know there's work I should be doing and it gnaws at the back of my mind - phone calls to make, emails to send, websites to update!

I'm still not certain how I found myself in this position, working for three different bosses in three different locations. I recall answering Help Wanted ads forwarded to me through a music public relations professor and a organization of which I was apart. I remembering meeting with two very talented women who wanted me to help them out, saying that, for financial reasons, my hours would be limited. It would work out fine. Having recently graduated, the only thing taking up my time was a part-time job where I didn't do much of anything.

Then somehow that part-time job because full time right as I started working freelance with a lovely little record label one or two afternoons a week and started maintaining websites and seeking press opportunities for a musician from the comfort of my newly moved-into apartment. Health insurance! Paid vacation! Things my professors said I would never get after completing my pursuit of a journalism degree (because journalists do not get sick and do not need vacations). Then the musician reunited with her former band and the workload increased from around 10 hours a week to any free moment I could spare.

Now I'm to the point where I work about 60-65 hours a week. Whenever someone asks me why, I come up with reasons - one job pays the bills, the other two will hopefully lead me down a road that will eventually end with a job I care about and enjoy doing. My friends look at me with understanding. My coworkers, family and people who don't know me that well look at me like I'm nuts.

They may have a point.

This is my story of how I'm navigating a life with three jobs and a cloudy future in an industry with an uncertain future of its own, and yet still manage to stay up-to-date on random pop culture minutiae and bake fresh bread every other weekend.